Thailand

THE INDOCHINESE REFUGEE QUESTION

Cambodian refugee children in ThailandCourtesy CARE, Inc.

The forced migrations of Indochinese to Thailand for
political or economic reasons had been a common occurrence
throughout the 200 years of the Chakkri Dynasty. The most recent
refugee influx began in 1975 with the fall of the Lon Nol regime
in Cambodia, then the collapse of the South Vietnamese government
in April, followed by the change of leadership in Laos in
December. According to official Thai figures, 228,200 refugees,
mostly from Laos, entered Thailand between 1975 and 1978.
Included were Lao, Khmer, Tai Dam, Tai Nung, and Hmong, who came
overland, and Vietnamese, who came by boat. Fifteen camps and
four detention centers were established and jointly funded and
operated by the Thai government, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and various international
relief agencies. Most of the camps were along the border with
Laos and Cambodia or at ports on the Gulf of Thailand. Until
October 1977, Thai authorities generally accepted incoming
Indochinese on the assumption that they would stay only until
repatriated or relocated elsewhere.

After the coup of October 1977, the new Kriangsak Chomanand
government reviewed Thai refugee policy. As a result of the
growing refugee burden, the Thai government made it clear that
greater international recognition of the refugee problem was
needed, as well as financial and technical support for Thailand's
relief program. Citing population pressures, land shortages, and
potential economic friction between Thai and refugees, the Thai
government refused to permit permanent resettlement of large
numbers of refugees. Thus, in November 1977 the government banned
new arrivals from Laos (termed "illegals") on the basis of the
determination that these refugees were economically rather than
politically motivated.

The actual number of Lao in Thailand continued to be
impossible to determine; in 1987 Thai authorities claimed that up
to 10,000 arrived daily, adding to an estimated 84,000 Lao
refugees and illegals already in the Mekong Valley and border
camps. Of the 42,000 inhabitants of Ban Vanai camp, between 3,000
and 6,000 were illegals. These numbers were subject to rapid
change because of government-enforced repatriation, resettlement,
and voluntary returns. In 1987 Amnesty International expressed
concern over the fate of 155 Hmong who presumably were forcibly
repatriated from Thailand; they were then arrested and detained
without charge or trial by Lao authorities. This alleged incident
may have led to resettlement requests by at least 5,000 Hmong
(there were 56,000 in Thai camps) at the time. There was also a
steady flow of persons returning to Laos on their own.

Laotians were not the only refugees caught in the Thai
repatriation policy, which vacillated between national interest
and humanitarian concerns. In 1979 tens of thousands of people,
mostly ethnic Chinese, began to leave Vietnam by sea; hostilities
between China and Vietnam directly or indirectly encouraged this
migration by boat. Ships of the Royal Thai Navy sometimes
discouraged Vietnamese refugee craft from attempting landings;
some of Thailand's neighbors had been even more strict about
turning away "boat people." Despite its relatively lenient
position, Thailand was judged harshly by the international
community as a result of reported acts of piracy by Thai vessels.
However, because of increased vigilance and improvement in
training of Thai maritime police in the 1980s, convictions for
piracy increased significantly, and Thai fishermen began to
provide greater assistance to the boat people. Nonetheless, the
international press continued to report acts of piracy by Thai
citizens.

In January 1979, Cambodia's Pol Pot regime was overthrown in
fighting between Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge forces, and hundreds
of thousands of destitute Cambodian civilians fled westward to
the provinces of their country adjacent to the Thai border.
Tensions built quickly along the ill-defined and disputed
Thai-Cambodian border. It was extremely difficult for Thai police
to mount effective patrols against illegal entry or illicit trade
activities. Smuggling by Thai citizens and foraging raids into
Thailand by Khmer Rouge troops soon became a major source of
concern. In June 1979, Thailand began forced repatriation of more
than 40,000 Cambodians, who were loaded into buses with a week's
supply of food each and taken back across the border.

In July representatives of fifty nations concerned about this
forced repatriation met in Geneva, where they pledged increased
aid and permanent asylum for more refugees. Under international
pressure, Thailand revised its refugee policy in October 1979;
although still considered illegal entrants, Cambodians would not
automatically be intercepted but would be given every assistance
possible as a matter of compassion. In November 1979, camps were
opened near the border with Cambodia, and within 2 months 156,000
illegal immigrants were housed in them. The Thai military had
assumed responsibility for another 149,000 Cambodians; there were
also 113,000 at Khao-I-Dang and 28,400 at Sa Kaeo. The Ministry
of Interior was responsible for the illegal immigrants in other
camps.

Increased armed warfare along the Thai-Cambodian border
disrupted the lives of the Thai citizens as well as Cambodian
civilians. Hence, Thai military officials became more closely
involved in refugee affairs and at times overruled or interfered
with civilian government policies. Supporters of the People's
Republic of Kampuchea occasionally staged border attacks on
refugee holding centers. In March 1984, Cambodian civilians
encamped directly across from the Thai province of Sisaket were
attacked; because of such activities, about 10,000 Cambodian
civilians fled into Thailand. Between 1975 and February 1987,
some 211,000 Cambodians were resettled abroad; this left about
22,000 in Khao-I-Dang, near the southeastern border city of
Aranyaprathet in Prachin Buri Province, since all other camps for
Cambodians had been officially closed. More than 100,000 remained
at various sites along the border, however. The possibilities for
resettlement remained unclear.

As refugees in East Africa and Central America began to
receive more international attention in the 1980s, Thailand
became increasingly concerned that the large number of
Indochinese people, especially Cambodians, would become solely a
Thai problem instead of an international one. In 1987 the Thai
government officially closed the Khao-I-Dang holding center, in
part to refocus international attention on the issue of
Indochinese refugees. In announcing the closing of Khao-I-Dang,
Prasong Soonsiri, secretary general to Thailand's prime minister,
stated, among other reasons, that these camps in Thailand had
created a "pull factor" that had encouraged more Cambodians to
cross the border. Asked about the border people's fate, a high
official of a Cambodian resistance group answered in December
1986 that "the camps [are] closed but not closed."

The Thai government stated that as of February 1986 there
were still 127,817 Indochinese refugees in Thai holding and
processing centers, while some 500,000 refugees had been
resettled in third countries. After 1981 the rate of resettlement
declined sharply; for example, only 33,090 people were resettled
in 1982, a drop of about two-thirds from the 102,564 resettled in
1981. Thai authorities had become concerned not only that
international attention had decreased but also that the decline
in third-country resettlement would continue because of more
selective criteria and more stringent procedures for screening
and accepting candidates for resettlement. People had always
moved across natural and artificially imposed borders in
Indochina for economic and political reasons, but between 1975
and 1980 about 1.3 million people were displaced by the Second
Indochina War and its aftermath. Because of its common borders
with Laos and Cambodia, Thailand had shouldered the burden of a
great number of these refugees who sought first asylum there. The
flow of refugees after 1980 decreased little, but the numbers who
found permanent homes did. In the late 1980s, the Indochinese
refugee crisis remained both unsolved and a factor of growing
importance in understanding late twentieth-century Thai society.

The burden of sheltering, even temporarily, several hundred
thousand refugees placed stresses on social services already
stretched thin by rapid urbanization. The more serious prospect
of having permanently to assimilate large numbers of refugees was
an even greater worry for Thai officials and the society as a
whole. It was not a new problem, however, for a nation composed
as Thailand was of many ethnic groups
whose ancestors down through the centuries had sought refuge in
the region of the Chao Phraya Valley.

* * *

American, British, Thai, and other scholars have carried out
research on Thailand's rural communities since the late 1940s.
These studies are marked by varying perspectives and different,
sometimes contradictory, emphases. From the end of World War II
until the 1970s, Americans were the leaders in Thai studies. This
dominance has ended, however, because of the dramatic improvement
in education in Thailand and the increased involvement of the
scholars of other countries, such as Australia. In the late
1980s, excellent studies in both English and Thai were being
produced by Thammasat University's Thai Khadi Research Institute
and Chulalongkorn University's Institute of Asian Studies. The
Study of Thailand, edited by Eliezer B. Ayal, presents a
historical review of works relating to Thai studies.

Thailand in the 80s, published by the National
Identity Office of the Office of the Prime Minister of Thailand,
presents a comprehensive overview of Thailand with an economic
and social orientation. An examination of changes in Thai
society, polity, and culture since World War II is presented in
Charles F. Keyes's Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern
Nation-State. A more historical approach is presented in
David K. Wyatt's Thailand: A Short History. The Thai
political framework is addressed by John L.S. Girling in
Thailand: Society and Politics. Several texts have been
written on Thailand's physical setting and population; the most
comprehensive of those was Wolf Donner's The Five Faces of
Thailand. In the Thai context, it is best to accept the
melding of society and religion; true to this blending is
Japanese scholar Yoneo Ishii's Sangha, State, and Society.
Wyatt's The Politics of Reform in Thailand still stands as
the preeminent work on Thai education, but a number of new works
on Thai literature have been published. Most recently, Herbert P.
Phillips's Modern Thai Literature and Wibha Senanan's
The Genesis of the Novel in Thailand provide a good
overview of twentieth-century thought through the medium of
literature. For a wider perspective on Thai art and culture,
Facets of Thai Cultural Life, published by the Office of
the Prime Minister in 1984, is useful. (For further information
and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)